


these bones burn for you

by Catherines_Collections



Series: rewards of benevolence [1]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Androids, Artificial Intelligence, Body Dysphoria, Dysphoria, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, the title for this is ironic & if u read it you'll find out why
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 08:47:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14352024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catherines_Collections/pseuds/Catherines_Collections
Summary: “Patrick,” the machine repeats. “My name is Patrick.”The shape’s mouth falls open, awed.“That’s right,” the shape says, gentle."Patrick."





	these bones burn for you

**Author's Note:**

> i had an idea. wrote it today. here it is. i missed writing like this. this is the shortest thing i've written in forever.
> 
> Enjoy! I own nothing.
> 
> (Series title taken from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein)

 

.

 

It’s like coming up from water. Something bright flashes on, everything blinding, and then there’s sound. Everything is too much.  
  
“Hello,” a voice says, clearer now. Bold and gaining shape.  
  
The machine blinks awake, slow.  
  
“Hello,” it answers back, repeating the word back, meaning lost as syllables blend into each other.  
  
The shape’s face shifts and lips curve as they nod their head. “Yeah, that’s right,” the shape says, breathless. “Hey, buddy. It’s been a while.”  
  
The voice turns quiet, soft, and the shape leans forward to press something on the machine’s side. “You’re almost ready. Soon, I promise.”  
  
There’s a quiet _click_ and the machine’s eyes flutter shut.  
  
                                                                                                            ———  
  
“What’s your name?” The voice asks when the machine become conscious again. The machine blinks, acknowledges existence as something far off. Everything feels wrong. Stilted and too formed. It doesn’t connect.  
  
There are fingers snapping in front of them. The shape says, “Come on, you can do it. What’s your name?”  
  
“Patrick,” the machine mumbles, sifting through the coding flooding before their eyes. They try again, louder, “My name is Patrick.”  
  
The shape smiles, again, and nods, typing a few more times on their keyboard before turning back to them.  
  
“Yeah, okay,” the shape says, and this close the machine can see that their hair is more oil than hair, covering dark eyes. “Say it again, for me.”  
  
“Patrick,” the machine repeats. “I’m Patrick.”  
  
The shape’s mouth falls open, awed.  
  
“That’s right,” the shape says, gentle. “ _Patrick_ .”  
  
  
                                                                                                           ———  
  
  
There’s more light, sound and metal.  
  
The world comes as easy as it fades.  
  
  
                                                                                                           ———  
  
  
“How did I get here?” The machine asks, sitting on the workbench stool, waiting.  
  
The shape purses their lips and shrugs. Their shoulders are tight, coiled and looking like they’re waiting for something.  
  
“I made you,” They say. “You’re mine.”  
  
Patrick blinks, tilts their head. Coding filters through their ears, bleeds before their eyes.  
  
“Yours,” they say, something in their circuits firing when the shape glances at them. “Alright.”

The shape grins.  
  
                                                                                                           ———  
  
  
“You can call me Pete,” the shape says, doing something to Patrick’s arm with a screwdriver. A few screws caught between white teeth. “Its an even trade, sort of. One name for another.”  
  
Patrick’s arm sits between them on the table, all blinking lights and blue wires intertwining with red. A shiny metal door flipped open to reveal more metal underneath. It’s all silver and shimmering.  
  
Patrick watches Pete cut a wire on the inside with distant interest. Pete pulls on something and Patrick stares, detached.  
  
“Pete,” Patrick says, head tilting when Pete jumps, watching as he freezes before taking a breath with a shaky smile. “Okay. I’m Patrick.”  
  
Pete laughs, tightens something that makes Patrick flinch out of reflex. Nothing connects.

“Yeah,” Pete says. “I know.”  
  
“Oh,” Patrick says back.  
  
                                                                                                          ———

Existence is wires and light and metal.

There’s two chairs, a table, a few boxes, and Pete’s computer in the lab.

Pete says, _this is home._

And Patrick thinks:  _no_. _It's not._

                                                                                                          ———

  
“Why did you make me?” Patrick asks, flexing their fingers and watching the metal clench. Pete hums and glances up from his computer.  
  
“Well,” Pete starts, smiling carefully. “That’s kind of a trick question. Really, you made me first. I’m just returning the favor.”  
  
Patrick stares and Pete laughs, rubbing the back of their neck, blushing. “I just- I guess I can’t take all the credit.”  
  
Patrick wants to ask _well then who can_ but Pete turns back to their computer, and Patrick looks back down at their hand, wondering just how far down the answers are buried.  
  
“It’s more like,” Pete mumbles, eyes staring at the numbers flirting across the screen. “You gave me an outline, and I filled in the rest.”  
  
Patrick nods, slow, even though Pete isn’t looking anymore. He presses his fingers into his palm, wondering why none of it feels like anything.  
  
                                                                                                          ———

  
Pete’s eyes are closed, face down and tilted to the side on his desk.  
  
Pete called it sleeping. Like that thing Patrick does when Pete presses the right button, only Pete remembers it. He says he doesn't get much of it, laughing like it was a joke Patrick was missing.  
  
He brushes a careful finger across Pete’s cheek, wondering if Pete can feel the metal burning underneath.

  
  
                                                                                                         ———

 

“Is there anyone else here?” Patrick asks, and Pete stills on the other side of the table.

There’s music playing in the office. _A record,_  Pete had called it, smiling like it hurt. _It’s magic in a sphere,_ Pete whispered, and Patrick listened when he set it on a box with a needle.

 _I don’t like it,_ Patrick said the first time Pete played it for it. It sounded like static; like the space between the water and waking up. Pete laughed it off and said, _you’ll learn to_ , but his eyes went cold. Patrick didn’t say anything else about it, just listened whenever Pete played anything.

“Nope,” Pete says, flipping the record over. “It’s just you and me left, ‘Rick.”

The room seems to get darker as the music plays.

 

                                                                                                          ———

 

There’s a pile of papers buried and locked in Pete’s desks drawers.

 _Don’t touch any of that_ , Pete says. _They are mine._

Patrick thinks: _too much is._

 

_———_

 

Once, Pete tells him to sing.

“I don’t know how,” Patrick says, watching Pete’s face twist into something awful and wrong.

When Patrick wakes up, he has millions of songs in his data bank.

“What do you want to hear?” Patrick asks, and Pete smiles.

“ _Anything,_ ” he says.

                                                                                                            ———

Patrick does not listen.

Patrick is metal and wires and _nothing like Pete._

Pete finally sleeps and Patrick waits. The drawer isn’t hard to get into. He dives in and traces each paper carefully.

There are faces on the papers. Patrick absorbs them all into memory, scanning each different face, recording each difference, each set of eyes and smiles. Thinks, _liarliarliar._

He flips the paper over, watching as his own face stares back at him.

Here’s what Patrick forgets between the two familiar faces staring back up at him:

 

Pete’s a light sleeper.

 

                                                                                                            ———

 

Once, Patrick catches his reflection in a shard of glass from Pete’s laboratory.

He sees white skin, red hair, blue eyes, pink lips.

Patrick thinks, _there’s nothing but metal here._

 

                                                                                                            ———

 

“I’m not him,” Patrick says when Pete starts to yell, watching Pete’s eyes flash as he shakes his head.

“No, see, that’s the thing,” Pete laughs, half mad. “You _are._ You have his voice, his eyes. You’re _him_.”

“I’m not,” the machine says, metal fingers brushing over the picture from Pete’s stack of papers. A redheaded kid who looks just like them, but he’s real. Was real. Flesh and bone and blood and _gone_.  
  
“I’m what you made me,” Patrick says, quiet, and Pete stares, face turned to stone. “I'm just a reflection. You did this to me. You turned me into a monster.”  
  
Pete flinches back, face melting from ice into fury when Patrick steps backwards, tripping over the wires and lines spilling from underneath Pete’s desk.  
  
Pete snarls, “ _I made you!”_ lurching forward, and Patrick—  
  
Patrick flips open the skin cover on his chest, revealing more metal: wires and bulbs where blood and organs should be. Pete’s expression turns to horror when Patrick reaches in and _pulls_.  
  
Blue wires and red lights fade as sparks fly, tingling spreading through his chest. Body racked with _feeling_ , and the machine laughs. A choked sound, like he’s gasping for air he doesn’t need anymore.  
  
“Alright.” Patrick mumbles, smiling. “I’m unmaking, then.”

The world fades back into dark as Pete stumbles forward.  
  
  
                                                                                                              ———

 

There's just: dark

 

dark

 

 _dark_.

 

                                                                                                              ———

  
Everything is murky and cold. It’s like being underwater, but they’re not sure how they know what that feels like.  
  
“What’s your name?” A voice asks. There’s more sound, still muffled but climbing through. Desperate and persistent, sounding like it’s always been there.  
  
“Patrick,” the machine says. Cold fading into nothing as their eyes flutter open.  
  
They repeat, “My name is Patrick.”  
  
The voice’s face crinkles as they smile, something between tired and relief.  
  
“Hello, Patrick,” the voice says. “Welcome home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments & Kudos are very very much appreciated and I'm rhymesofblau on tumblr.


End file.
